Innovative Approaches To Improve Your Teen Mental Health Treatment.

Before being admitted to Paradigm, every teen undergoes a thorough psychiatric evaluation, which our team of therapists and other mental health care professionals use, when designing the teen’s individual treatment plan.  Each treatment plan is carefully constructed, with a primary goal of providing individualized treatment, according to each teen’s specific condition, symptoms, experiences, and interests.  Along these lines, it’s worth noting that at Paradigm, we approach therapy according to teens’ strengths and other positive attributes, as opposed to their mental illness and symptoms.  This is one way in which we provide therapy that is thorough and precise to the individual, in striving to help teens toward a real and long-lasting recovery.  We feel uniquely qualified to provide such individualized care, because of the vast number of types of therapy we’re able to offer, provided by our team of therapists and specialists, dedicated to the well-being of adolescents.
Paradigm Mental Health Teen Treatment

Individualized Treatment
Every teen’s treatment looks different at Paradigm Malibu, which is something we pride ourselves in.  With that being said, there are some fundamental aspects of teen mental health treatment we provide that are consistent, among all teens that are here, addressing their specific mental illness.
First of all, every teen will receive one-on-one therapy, every day they’re here.  In addition to these sessions, they’ll also take part in group therapy sessions, family sessions, and a number of other types of therapy, depending on what they’re interested in.  Some of these special therapy approaches might include things like: Dance Therapy, Art Therapy, Writing Therapy, and Equine Therapy.
Within therapy sessions, our therapists strive to help teens address what they’re experiencing, such as symptoms, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, as well as the underlying habits and beliefs that may exist, beneath the surface.  Our therapists work to help teens to address, evaluate, and in some cases, learn to accept and cope with a mental illness.  Then, our therapists teach teens to become self-aware, learn their habits and triggers, re-establish healthy belief systems, and recognize how their illness effects others close to them.  This is only possible when teens work on things beyond the illness and symptoms, which is what we’re dedicated to helping them do.
Another important aspect of therapy sessions is helping teens to learn healthy habits and ways of dealing with stress and triggers.  Because many mental illnesses that teens face do not have a permanent “cure,” it’s very helpful for teens to learn how to alleviate their stress in positive ways.  A few of the resources and techniques available to them at Paradigm include: exercise, yoga, acupuncture, and massage.  We encourage teens to draw upon old likings and activities, as well as discover new, as part of an intentional effort to adding positive actions to their lifestyles.

Another challenge of mental illness for teens can be navigating medication and finding the right combination and/or amounts that work for your teen’s illness.  While teens are at Paradigm, we make special efforts to monitor and assess teens’ medication, and make necessary adjustments, while they’re here.  Medication can be an incredibly powerful factor in helping alleviate teens’ symptoms, but can be an admittedly difficult process, as well.  Whether teens have been on medications before coming to Paradigm, or are beginning new medications while they’re here, we try to make this process as effective and painless as possible, providing whatever support we can along the way.

Parent Support
Whenever we work with a teen, we also work with their parents.  For teens with mental illness, we work with parents in individual and family sessions, both to provide support and acknowledge the experience of being a parent of a teen with mental illness, as well as to advise parents in how to best support their teens.  We also provide Parent Effectiveness training, which aims at helping parents learn tools and resources for communicating and working effectively with their teens.  Following mental health treatment, we also provide free ongoing support services for both teens and their parents.

http://paradigmmalibu.com/teen-mental-health-treatment/